


What Wind is to Fire

by Cheekybeak



Series: Darkness [21]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Legolas in Valinor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:33:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22785670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheekybeak/pseuds/Cheekybeak
Summary: We all know Gimli sailed with Legolas but what happened when they reached the other side? How important is a goodbye?
Relationships: Elrohir/Legolas Greenleaf, Legolas Greenleaf/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Darkness [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/576634
Comments: 19
Kudos: 33





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The first of two oneshots, (or a twoshot ...is there such a thing?) Legolas, Elrohir, Valinor and a dwarf. I needed to write me some Gimli. 
> 
> Title is from a quote by Roger de Bussy-Rabutin

_Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it enkindles the great._

Roger de Bussy-Rabutin

**Gimli**

Dwarves are not meant for boats. 

How I have survived this trip, surrounded by water, trapped in this small space with only wood-elves for company I do not know. It is as well I have had the excitable, distractible, scattered to the wind, version of Legolas to keep my mind off the waves for it has taken all my concentration to keep him safe. 

He is bad at the best of times but this has been horrendous. 

The sealonging took him by the scruff of the neck the day after Aragorn left us and it has not let him go. That one night he had, of sorrow and pain, then a mania took him. It has been painful to watch, especially the goodbyes. 

We stood on the shore, all of us, before we boarded our small boat, and Legolas, giddy as a child, could not stay still. He laughed, he cavorted, he noticed not at all the grief of Elrohir who he was about to leave behind, or Eldarion who he would never see again. I could have shaken him but I knew it would not do the slightest bit of good, and I worry because one day this illness must leave him, and what then? 

When he remembers them, what then? 

Thankfully the pain of this ghastly journey is almost over. We sailed past an island not long ago, the excitement of which had Legolas dangling over the side, so Maewen was forced to grip on to him to keep him steady.

“Tol Eressëa!” he cried. “Erynion, let us go there.” 

Steady, quiet Erynion steers us stoically on our way. How he knows where he goes I do not know. I do know however, he never wanted to leave. 

“We do not go there, Legolas,” he said in a voice both soft and very, very sad. 

“Just to look.” Legolas would not be deterred. “A short stop only.” 

“We go to Thranduil,” Erynion replies firmly, “and Thranduil is not there.” 

It worked. As always the mention of his father held Legolas in check and he acquiesced. Our only effective weapon, we have resorted to using Thranduil, or the threat of him, often. 

But now we reach the shore. Even I can see it, and the elves, with their infuriating sharp sight, can see those who crowd upon it waiting for us. 

“There are so many,” Maewen murmurs by my side and she does not seem pleased. 

Legolas, however, is ecstatic. 

“Who is there?” He cries happily, as he canters about wildly from side to side causing our small craft to tip most disconcertingly. 

“Stop it, Legolas.” Erynion sighs tiredly as he struggles to keep us upright. I think he is sick of this. I know I am. “Let me get closer to shore, for Gimli’s sake.” 

My nerves churn as I gaze upon those standing on the shore. What were we thinking, bringing me here? Suddenly that which made so much sense in Arda seems a fools errand in Valinor.

We are close now, close enough even I can tell dark head from light. Legolas has settled, eyes darting back and forth he hums to himself, a joyful melody, and I am pleased, no matter how tired I am of his antics, that in this brief moment he is happy. 

He lulls me into a false sense of security. 

All this way, all this time never taking my eye off him and I fall at the last hurdle. 

“Laerion!” he cries, and he is gone. One moment he stands there beside me and the next he is over the side and into the water, the fabric of his shirt tearing through my desperate grasp. 

He disappears beneath the waves and my breath is in my mouth. 

“Legolas!” Maewen cries and then she is at the side, peering over the edge, into the water, searching, searching. 

“Stop her, Gimli!” Erynion calls to me, his voice desperate. “Take the till, Maewen! I will go in.” 

Then Legolas stands.

I can breathe again. 

He is tall, the beach must be flat, the waves churn around him, water ebbing and flowing from his waist to shoulders as they pass. He stands and then he stumbles. 

I have no idea what it is makes his legs fold beneath him but he falls against the boat, gripping the side as he does so, sending us tipping drastically. 

“Legolas, you will capsize us!” is the shout from Erynion. 

And Legolas turns to me, face white, eyes wide and horrified.

“What have I done Gimli? What have I done?”

At the worst possible moment he has remembered. 

What do I say to him?

He gives me no chance to collect my thoughts in any case.

“I must go back!” he cries, lets go of the boat, and turns, as if he would swim all the way back to Arda and before our horrified eyes the wave hits him, just as he is off balance, pushing him back and back and back, burying him underneath it’s churning white. 

No cry from Erynion will stop her now. Maewen dives into those waves with not a single moment of hesitation. 

It seems forever we stand there and wait, Erynion struggling to keep the lot of us out of the water, the waves pushing us away from them. 

She catches him. Of course she does. Beautiful, steadfast, stubborn, ferocious Maewen has his back as she always does and hauls him, coughing and spluttering to his feet again. 

“I have to go back,” he repeats himself. “Elrohir, I have left him.” 

“Elrohir wants you _here_.” she says softly. “He wants you here waiting for him.” 

“Eldarion. . . ” He is drenched, his face is wet but I am sure there are tears mixed amongst the salt of the sea. “I did not say goodbye.” 

“I said your goodbyes for you, Legolas. He understands. He gave me something for you.” 

There, as they stand in the midst of the swirling water, she places something into his hand but I can not see it. He stares. The distress on his face shows his heart is breaking. It breaks my own. He loved that boy. 

“Get back in the boat,” Erynion calls. “Before we are too far away!” He is right. I do not fancy Maewen having to walk Legolas out of the water the way he is now. 

And suddenly there is movement on the shore. Do they just now realise we are in trouble here? 

“Legolas!” A voice I do not know calls out to my friend and I see the stranger run towards us. Tall, blonde, eerily familiar and yet not at all, he crashes through the water, jumping the waves as if they are nothing, as if they are only an inconvenience, as Legolas stands like a lost thing. 

“Laerion,” Erynion sighs beside me. “Thank Elbereth for that.”

Laerion. Legolas’ brother. The brother I have heard so much about all these years. This is him. 

He passes us without a glance. Now I see him up close he is so very like Thranduil he could be no other. No wonder I thought him familiar.

He is upon Legolas almost before I know it, wrapping his arms around him, holding him tight so the waves do not buffet him, and Legolas leans into the embrace with a sigh, 

“ _Laerion_ ,” He says it like a prayer. 

“What are you doing, little one?” Laerion’s smile is gentle as he rests his cheek upon the wetness of Legolas’ silver gold hair. “You were facing the wrong way.” 

“I have made a mistake,” Legolas says then, “I should not be here. I have left them behind. I must go back.” 

“Ah Legolas, you are not the first of our people to feel that. The sea-longing lures you here where you should never be, then it abandons you. It is a cruel thing, but you cannot go back, my brother. I have found you a woods here you will love. Not the Greenwood but almost.” 

I like this brother of Legolas’. He is soft, he is calm, he is a shelter in the storm. 

“You do not understand.” Legolas murmurs, head buried in his brothers shoulder. “You do not understand, Laerion.” 

“Perhaps I do not. But I understand this, Legolas. I have waited a long time to see you.”

Maewen, beside them is transformed. She glows. Her smile at that moment is one of the most joyous I have ever seen. 

“Laerion?” She touches his arm with a hesitancy that is unlike her. 

“Maewen, Why am I not surprised to see you at my brothers back? Still protecting this terror from himself I see.” 

He laughs, then he takes control, and control is something we desperately need. One arm around Legolas who is suddenly docile and subdued, he reaches out with the other to grasp Maewen’s hand leading them both back to us as we bob awkwardly amongst the waves. I reach down to haul the girl back on board and he stares at me, curiosity written plain on his face. 

“So it is true. He has brought us a dwarf.” 

How does he know? How does he know I was coming here? 

“Gimli Gloinson.” I tell him, “from the Glittering Caves.” 

“The Glittering Caves?” He looks as if he wants to ask me more about exactly what I mean, but then he stops himself, turning instead to Erynion. 

“Erynion, always his steadying influence. Thank you for getting him here. I will walk him in from here and meet you on the shore.” 

“Laerion,” Erynion is, as always, serious. “he has left behind some he loves.” 

“I know.” If possible he pulls Legolas closer. “I know that, Erynion, and I will mind it. I have met one of them.” 

He means Aragorn. 

He refers to that bizarre trip by Aragorn and Legolas to the very doors of Mandos’ Halls. The one I did not see, the one I never truly believed to be anything other than the side effect of of dying and grieving minds. Yet this man, who has been dead and is no longer, has just confirmed it. He died centuries ago,

Yet he has seen my friend. 

It makes me wonder where that friend is now, a pang of loss. I miss him. 

“I do not want to reach the shore,” Legolas says, as if he has just woken up. “Once I am there I will never go back.” 

It worries me. He should be quite safe. He can swim. The water is not that deep. But he is fully clothed, he is not in his right mind, he is strong. How hard will he fight against his brother and commonsense if, in the midst of the chaos of that mind, he is determined to return to Arda. 

“Oh child,” Laerion sighs, “your feet are already on the shore. Why do you think the sea-longing has left you?” 

“Laerion!” I know that voice. Another has left the shore, striding through the water, determined, and yet still majestic as he always was. I have not seen him for years but he is still the same. “Laerion, bring the boy here!” 

There is no doubt it it’s an order. An order Thranduil is coming to personally ensure is done. How odd it is to see him, soaking wet, fight his way through the waves. He pays them no mind. 

The sound of that voice sparks a light in Legolas.

“Father!” He cries. 

He has not been the same since his father left him. 

“Go, Erynion,” Laerion tells us before turning away towards Thranduil. “Take the boat further in. Keep that dwarf safe.” Then he laughs. “I never thought I would say that! What have you done to me, Legolas?” 

Legolas will be safe with the both of them. He will not fight against the will of Thranduil, and Erynion obviously thinks so too for he ceases his battle with the till and allows us to float closer with each wave to the shore . . . Away from them. 

Each wave pushes us nearer until shapes become people and people become individuals I actually know. I am terrified. 

Maewen, next to me, dripping with the sea, must sense it. 

“Are you alright Gimli?” 

“What were we thinking? What if they do not allow me here? What if they send me back?”

I came here with Legolas by my side, now he is led by his brother and father away from me, already nearing the shore, and I face this line up of Elves alone. Just one dwarf. This is not how I imagined it. 

But Maewen takes my hand. 

“Then we all go back,” she says. “You, me, Erynion, Legolas, we all go back.” 

I was wrong. I am not alone. 

All the rest is chaos. 

It is a chaos of elves, of strangeness, of reunion. 

“Gimli Gloinson,” says my Lady, who greets me as I step foot upon the shore. My Lady whose beauty I have travelled all this way for one more glimpse of, whose hair still hangs about my neck. She is the same and my heart soars. “Elevellon. If any have earned that name it is you. Welcome. Thank you for returning one we love home to us.” 

I am uncomfortable with such praise, especially from her. 

“I have done nothing but be a friend.” I tell her, “and I need no thanks for that. I am sorry if my presence here is a problem. We had no one to ask before we left.” 

“You are here with my blessing, and my Fathers blessing.” 

I have no idea who her father may be or even that someone of such magnificence might _have_ a father, but that is acceptance enough for me. It is not until later I wonder how she knew of my coming to be able to grant it. 

Elrond is with her, a friendly face amongst a crowd of solemn ones and I never thought I would describe him thus. He seems lighter, younger if that were possible. 

“Gimli,” He smiles as he bows his head. I do believe he is pleased to see me and whoever would have thought it. I have a message for him. One given to me on the shores of Arda, one Legolas should have carried but he did not have the sense to do it. 

“I have a message from your sons, Lord Elrond. They still have work to do in Arda but they will follow after. They send their love.” 

“They will follow?” He says it as if he does not quite believe it. 

“They will follow.” 

Of that I have no doubt. 

It is hours before I see Legolas again. 

They take us to the Sindar, to Thranduil’s people, amongst whom random silvans dance, wild and excitable as they always are. Thranduil wraps his son up tightly so though I glimpse him I cannot get near him. It is Maewen who keeps me company in the end. She does not leave my side. 

“Go and find your family,” I tell her eventually. “Be reunited with them. Do not worry about me.” 

“My family are not here. They chose the land. They will be in the Greenwood forever,” she replies. 

And I realise with a start just how much she has given up for Legolas. I hope he knows it. Sometimes he is not the best at seeing these things so I must make a note to tell him. 

It is Erynion who finally drags her away from me. He rushes up to us out of the crowd, breathless, eyes flashing in a most unErynion-like way. 

“Maewen,” he cries, “you must come with me! You will never guess who I have found. Taenor is here!” 

Taenor! I know him. Legolas’ second in command when he first came to Ithilien. A wise, sensible Sindar sent by Thranduil to watch over his wild son. Dead so long ago. A death that caused Legolas so much pain. 

“Taenor!” Her eyes light up. “Where?” 

“He wishes to see you.” Erynion grabs her hand, his excitement evident. “Come on, he has much to say to you.” 

And still she hesitates and looks to me.

“Go!” I tell her. “Go and see him. I will not have you tarry here on my behalf.” I am tempted to go with them for I did like Taenor, but this is a silvan thing. I will let them have their reunion alone, without a dwarf to interrupt things. I will see Taenor later. I am sure he will not be hard to find. 

Instead I take myself off, away from them all, and walk. Too many elves in one place are draining. This is a new land. It is not my land, but somewhere there must be stone and I wonder what stories Valinor stone has to tell me?

Of course my mind may yearn for stone but my feet have other ideas. They take me back to the sea. Why, when I never wish to set foot on a boat again? 

Because they know if Legolas is to ever escape that horde of elves who now consume him that is where he will go. 

I must say I am rather smug when I turn the corner, crest the dunes, and find him already there. Only briefly smug for my very next thought is horror. What was Thranduil thinking letting him escape here? 

“Does your father know you are here? Or your brother?” 

The smile he bestows on me when he spins around and sees me is a brilliant one. So he is pleased I am here. 

“It is many years since they have been my keepers,” he shrugs turning back to the sea, “and I am well versed in eluding both of them.” 

“Still I do not think they will be pleased you are here.” 

“And they will come and tell me so, once Laerion has realised I am not with Thranduil and Thranduil discovers I am not with Laerion.” 

He sounds more like Legolas than he has for a long time. 

“Perhaps I am not pleased to see you here alone either, Legolas,” I tell him. “The sea was a dangerous place for you earlier.”

“Ah, Gimli,” he sighs, “do not lecture me, come and sit with me.” 

And so I do. 

“I am sorry,” he says then. “I should have stayed with you. I brought you all this way and then abandoned you to land here on your own.” 

“I am a big boy, Legolas. I am not afraid of a few elves, and to be honest, you may not have been much help.” 

He laughs at that. A burst of the light, joyous, musical laughter I remember from when I first met him. How long is it since I have heard Legolas laugh like that? It has been years. 

“Were you truly not nervous?” he asks.

“I was terrified.” 

I am rewarded with another of those smiles. I am enjoying this so much. My Legolas is back. If only Aragorn could see him. 

“The sea-longing is gone, Gimli,” he sighs. “There is no trace of it left. The instant my feet touched the sand it vanished. There was nothing left to hold me up. I am struggling to find Legolas.” 

“Oh I can see him. I can see him, Legolas, and how I have missed him.” 

He is silent then, staring out to sea, across the waves, with so much intensity it is as if he thinks he can spot a glimpse of the shores of Arda we have left behind us, if only he looks hard enough. 

“I have made such mistakes, Gimli,” he says quietly. “I have walked away without a goodbye. I did not want to. Will Elrohir ever forgive me?” 

“There is nothing to forgive, Legolas.” 

“What I did was cruel.” 

I find with Legolas it is often best to be blunt. Honesty, no matter how painful it is, he responds well to. And so that is what I am. 

“It _was_ cruel,” I tell him. “It was painful to watch Elrohir have to let you go while getting nothing back, but it was not _you_ who did that to him and he knows that. It was the sea-longing and it was as cruel to you as it was to him.” 

“I do not know,” he replies. “I just do not know if you are right. I worry he is over there, upset with me, hurting, and I cannot make it right.”

Legolas and I, we do not often touch. He is elven, I am dwarven and it is not something either of us are comfortable with. Aragorn used to use a touch here, a touch there, to steady Legolas. It worked well and he was the only one the elf would accept it from. But it is not what _we_ do. 

But I think he needs it now, and Aragorn is not here to give it. 

It is up to me. 

So I reach out and cover his slender hand with my more solid one. 

And he grasps it, fingers curling around mine. 

“I am frightened, Gimli,” he says, “that by the time he gets here that hurt will have grown into something I cannot overcome.” 

“I have spoken to him, Legolas, and I am sure it will not.” 

His grip tightens. 

“And I have lost Eldarion.” There it is. A single tear winding its way down his cheek. In a way it is a relief to see him cry. “Not just Aragorn, but Eldarion, and I cannot even remember my last hours with him. He is gone forever, Gimli.” 

“I know, lad. I know. That is the cruelest thing. He knows you love him.” 

“He gave me something. He sent it with Maewen.” He slips his free hand into a pocket and pulls something out. Ever so slowly his fingers unfurl and in them lies a carved piece of wood. I should not be surprised. Eldarion is so very gifted with wood. I have tried to steer his gifts towards stone, to help him unlock the mysteries that lie within it. He would be a master stonemason, but always it has been wood he is drawn to. 

It is a group he has carved for Legolas, a man, an elf and a boy; Aragorn, Legolas, and Eldarion. Aragorn’s arm thrown across Legolas’ shoulders while small Eldarion rides high upon his own. It is intricate and it is beautiful. It is as if all three of them could step, lifelike, out of the wood. Every detail is correct, everything. And they are happy. 

“Oh what a gift, Legolas,” I murmur.

“I know,” 

And yet he hides it away again, though it hurts to take my eyes off it.

“I cannot look at it yet Gimli,” he says. 

So in that we are different. 

I hope one day he will be able to see it as I see it, the love they once had, and not just the pain of what he has lost. 

“I cannot believe they are gone,” he sighs. 

“No.” I will correct him on that. “Eldarion is not gone, Legolas. He lives, across that drafted water. He meets with those tedious Lords of Aragorn’s in Minas Tirith, he tries to tame that wild sister of his into behaving in some semblance of a princess. Perhaps he even spars with Elrohir today? We can no longer see him but he is _not_ gone. Elladan and Elrohir will arrive one day, as we did, across that horizon and they will bring with them a thousand tales of him.” 

“I will be here,” he says, “when they come.” 

And I hope, for his sake not my own, I am still here too. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These two chapters are designed to be read together. If it has been awhile since you read the first one I’d recommend re reading it before this one.

**Elrohir**

I am not meant for boats. 

While Elladan is completely at home on them, I am all at sea, literally. Tense, awkward, in the way, it is as well he enjoys this for if it was left to me I would have us lost or sunk. 

He has been transformed since we launched ourselves on the waves. Long has he been burdened, the sea-longing slowly but surely wearing him down, bit by bit, until we had no choice but to leave, even though Eldarion was not quite ready for it. Truth be told, would he ever be ready? It was a painful forever parting, the last of those children of Elros we would see, the last connection to our sister. It nearly broke me. It was only Elladan urging me on, the sea longing pushing him across the waves that made it possible. And Legolas, always Legolas. 

I wonder how he is? What has his life been like all these years? Who was waiting for him on the other side? Is he happy? Does he remember us? 

He did not when he left. 

Scattered, manic, wild, he laughed as my heart broke, seemingly not caring about our separation. I know he did, underneath the chaos the sea-longing had unleashed upon him. I know he did. I have been clinging to that all these years. 

And at the back of my mind there is a whisper, what if he did not? 

“Stop wallowing, Elrohir,” Elladan breaks into my thoughts, “it is not that bad.” He looks so well. Eyes bright, he stands tall and confident, smiling in the breeze. It is a joy to see. Truly I had begun to forget what an unburdened Elladan was like. 

“See,” he says, “We pass Tol Eressëa. We are nearly there.” 

I see, and it is a strange thing to look upon that thing of legend, an island we have only studied in books. Elves line the shore and watch us as we pass. I wonder if we know them? 

“We shall have to visit one day,” Elladan says, “I wonder if they will let us? Imagine, Elrohir, a whole new world for us to explore!” His eyes dance. He is in his element. Elladan, the more Elven of us, has been looking forward to Valinor. 

But I have not—not the idea of living in Valinor itself. 

I love Arda with all my heart. My soul sings there. The cities of Men, the freeness I find with the Rangers, all those things are what make my heart beat and give me joy. I do not want to leave them. If my life was just me, if there was no Elladan, and no Legolas, Arda is where I would stay. But there is Legolas and Elladan and as much as I love Arda, I love them more. 

And they choose Valinor. 

Elladan tells me it is not that bad, but to me leaving Arda is as if I lose my soul. 

If it was not completely ludicrous I would dive over the side of this boat and take my chances swimming back the way we have come. This whole journey I have battled against the desire to do just that. 

When we finally spot the shore we are aiming for all I feel is nerves. 

Elladan, on the other-hand is elated. 

“I wonder who will be there, “ he says, peering into distance, trying to pick them out. “Do you think they even know we come? Perhaps we will arrive to no welcome at all.” 

“Perhaps.” That is what I worry about. That he is not there. 

“Legolas will be there for you, of course,” Elladan smiles gently, but he is more confident about that than I am. “Imagine, Elrohir, not many minutes more and you will see him.” 

But I remember the scattered, wild Legolas who left me. The one who laughed when I tried to tell him how much I loved him at our goodbye. I have tried to ignore him and remember only the Legolas who was tender and adoring, who told me often how much he dreaded our inevitable temporary separation between worlds. But as time has gone on that Legolas has faded. The wild one has taken over, and I am afraid. 

What is Legolas like now? Has his sea-longing left him as Elladan’s seems to have, the minute our journey began? If it has, what is he like without it? I realise I have never been with a sea-longing free Legolas. Perhaps we will no longer work at all? Perhaps we needed the sea-longing so he needed me? 

We can see them now, lining up on the shore. Elladan’s theory of no welcome is a false one for there is a crowd. My stomach churns just looking at them, but Elladan is glowing, 

“Father!” He exclaims at the very instant I see him too. Unmistakably our father. It almost stops my heart, the sight of him. It has been so long. 

Elladan is over the side then. He can wait no longer. Waist deep in water he hauls the boat in to the shore and I have to join him. How odd would it be otherwise? 

And all of a sudden we are surrounded. Out of nowhere a familiar smiling face appears, taking the rope from my hands. 

“Go Elrohir,” he says, “go meet your family, let us do this.” 

He takes me completely by surprise for it has been years since I last saw him. 

“Gildor?” 

And I turn to the one next to him, who is just as familiar,

“Erestor?” 

Even though I was expecting to see them It is so completely startling. 

“Go cousin,” Gildor slaps me on the back as I stand numbly, pushing me forward. “Go. They have been waiting so long for you.” 

Cousin? 

That makes no sense but I stagger forward anyway, Elladan beside me, into the arms of my father. 

My father, who I have never been quite enough for, wraps his arms around me much as Estel might have, or Arathorn when I knew him. As if he were a mortal man and not Elrond of Imladris. It confuses me. Confusion heaps upon confusion and I am utterly bewildered. 

“Elrohir,” he murmurs, and he holds me back at arms length to look at me. Oh he has changed! How young he looks, how happy. “It really is you! I never dared believe I would ever see you here my precious boy.” He says my name but he must mean Elladan. Has it been so long he has us confused? Is that possible? Elladan is the precious one. Why has he greeted me first? 

“I told you I would drag him here,” Elladan laughs beside me.

“I sent the dwarf with a message. Did you not receive it?” I ask him. I told Gimli to let him know I would be coming. How can he have thought otherwise? 

A terrifying thought forces it’s way in to my mind. Is Legolas actually here? What if some catastrophe befell them, they never made it, and that is why the dwarf did not deliver the message? The sudden rush of fear sucks my breath away. 

“Yes he delivered it,” my father says softly—so they are here, “but I dared not believe it was true. So long have I feared Men would claim you in the end.” 

Did Gimli not tell him of Legolas and I? Did _Legolas_ not tell him?

Looking past my father I search in desperation. He must be here, somewhere. 

But it is not Legolas I find. It is her. 

“Mother.” Elladan murmurs it beside me as we both see her and my Father lets me go. 

“She has been waiting for you,” he says. 

She comes to me for I am rooted to the spot, unable to move, frozen in time. 

“Darling Elrohir,” she says, her hand brushing away strands of hair the wind blows across my face. “My strong one.” 

She is on her feet, she is smiling, she is whole. Gone is the terror, the fear, the shame, all of it gone. 

I cannot breathe. 

All is chaos then. 

They whisk us away, my brother and I, to a hall, a house? I know not where, and there are crowds of them. Parents, Grandparents, Great Grandparents, Uncles, Aunts, I am surrounded. Faces that are both familiar and not, old friends and strangers, crowd around us. Some of them—many of them—people stepped straight from the pages of history books. 

But no Legolas. 

Elladan is giddy with it. Laughing, dancing, eyes shining he weaves his way from one group to the next. He is euphoric in a way I have never seen him. Not me, I am numb. 

The noise deafens me, the buzz of conversation annoys me, the smiling faces, one after the other wanting my attention frustrate me. It is a relief when I stagger into Gildor and with a smile he steers me to the door. 

“Get some fresh air, cousin. You look as if you need it.” he grins. “I will cover for you.” 

There it is again. 

“Why do you call me that?” I ask him.

“Because it is what we are.” he smiles. “Now do you want an escape or not?” 

I do. I desperately want out and so I take up his offer, putting aside his nonsense for later. He always did talk in riddles. 

The air outside is fresh and cold. It brings with it the sea so that is where I head. The sea that I distrust, the waves I wished so recently to see the back of. And yet at the first opportunity my feet lead me there, for over the sea is the land I love. 

Legolas is not here. He has not come for me. Elladan is happy now. Would anyone notice if I swam into the waves and returned to Arda? I stand amongst the sand dunes, blinking away the salt and sand the breeze throws at me and wonder exactly that. Perhaps I will try. 

I have taken but a handful of steps when a voice floats out of the dark behind me. 

“Elrohir.” 

It is just a name. My name. But the voice that speaks it . . . Oh! 

And I spin on my heels. 

He is there. 

He stands arms folded, tall, beautiful, glowing . . . Legolas. 

“You took your time.” he says. 

“I took my time?” I can barely speak. So long it has been since I laid eyes on him and he is so, so, breathtaking with his beauty. 

“Magnificent as always, my Elrohir,” he says softly. “I thought you would never get here.” 

_My Elrohir_ , something about the way he says it smooths my nerves and loosens my tongue. 

“Where have you been?” 

“I have been here,” he says smoothly, “waiting for you.” 

“But I arrived hours ago. I looked for you. Why were you not down there . . . there where I needed you?” I wave a hand towards the shore. 

“Elrohir,” he says gently, “Your parents . . . your mother, there was no place for me there. It was not right. We watched you arrive, Gimli and I, and let them welcome you.” 

Perhaps he is right. It seems logical now he would let my mother greet me first. He knows how I have longed to see her and the pain her torment caused me. But this is not the welcome I imagined. 

“I have been trapped in that crowd,” I complain. “Why did you not come and find me? I have been searching for you. I thought—”

“In there? With all those self important Noldor? I knew Gildor would send you to me.” 

“You _knew_?” 

He knew? 

“Because we had arranged it. But he took his own sweet time. I had to send Gimli home when it got dark.” 

He is so different. 

The Legolas who left me could not sit still, even long before Aragorn’s death he was a fidgeting ball of perpetual motion. This Legolas is poised and calm. The Legolas I knew was a whirlwind of emotion driven endlessly by the sea. This Legolas seems controlled and logical. 

Where is _my_ Legolas? 

“I thought you had left me,” I tell him. “When you did not come, I thought you had forgotten me.” 

“Forgotten you,” he almost breathes it. “How could I ever have forgotten you. Every day I have waited for this moment. Every hour I have imagined the beauty in your face. Every minute I have missed you.” 

To hear him say it . . . It is a medicine for my very soul. 

“How could I forget you, Elrohir? How could anyone forget you?” 

“When you left—” 

I stop myself before I say the rest for suddenly it seems so foolish. When he left he was ill. When he left he was not this Legolas. When he left he was not even my Legolas. Elladan has been right all along. Of course he would be here. Of course he waited for me. 

Of course I have been a fool. 

“When I left?” 

That poise, that calm, suddenly falters before my eyes. I see it now, the things I missed. Those clenched fists, knuckles gleaming white, the chewing on his lip. He is wound tight as a drum. I am out of practice. I used to be able to read him so well. 

“Can you ever forgive me?” he whispers. 

“Forgive you? For what Legolas?” 

What has he done? 

“I left you . . . I left you without any goodbye.” 

He has worried about that? 

“You were unwell.” 

“I was cruel.” 

“The _sea_ was cruel.” 

“It hurt you.” 

I cannot bring myself to deny that. 

“I need you to know, Elrohir,” he says, “The moment I landed here, the moment my feet touched the shore and the sea-longing left me I regretted it. I tried to return, to swim back to you through the waves but they would not let me.”

Thank goodness for that. 

I forget for a moment I was considering doing that very thing myself. 

“There is nothing to forgive, Legolas.” I tell him. “I understand.” 

Still we stand apart, still awkward, still ill at ease, and I am not sure where to go from here. I do not like this feeling, or this strangely alien, familiar and yet unfamiliar Legolas. 

“Tell me of Eldarion.” 

It is a change of topic that surprises me and for a second I stumble. 

“I left him also,” he says by way of explanation when I am silent. “I have lost him forever and those last moments, my last days with him, I cannot remember any of it. Tell me what he has been doing in my absence.” 

Do I really want to tell him that? 

Does he want to know about that lonely boy, grieving for his father, struggling so hard to step into his footsteps. Will that help him? I think not. 

“He has his hands full with Tinu,” I say instead, voice light. She is stubborn and wilful, refusing to do anything those Lords and Ladies expect of her. They beat a path to Eldarion’s door demanding he somehow produce a more decorous sister. He has a delft hand with them that boy, better even than Aragorn, he takes the most disagreeable lord and has them eating out of his hand. I do not know how he does it.” 

And Legolas laughs. Light, joyful, mischievous, it is perhaps the most perfect sound I have ever heard. It has been so long, so very long since I have heard him laugh like that. 

“Eldarion has decided to educate his people.” I tell him. “All those ragged children wandering the streets on the lower circles, the ones Aragorn agonised about, he has put them all in school. It has been a huge task and—” 

Unbidden my mind is filled with pictures of that young man, bending over his fathers desk, head in his hands as he planned the finances for those schools of his. Arguing with the cantankerous Lords who said it could not, nay should not, be done. My poor quiet, gentle Eldarion. We have abandoned him. We have left him alone. We have walked away. 

My sorrow steals the words away. 

“And?” 

Legolas frowns at me as in the middle of a story I stand silent.

I will never see my boy again. 

“I have lost him, Legolas.” 

There is nothing else to say. 

His touch upon my hand as he takes it is like fire. How many years is it since I have felt his skin on mine? That skin is warm. It lights a trail of sparks, from my fingers brushing his, into my heart. 

“Come with me.” He says. “Come with me, Elrohir.” 

To the sea? 

“You should not go there!” I cry as he leads us to the waves. 

But he tosses his hair as if he has not a care in the world. 

“I have no sea-longing, remember.” 

I have never known him without it and every inch of me screams this is dangerous. This should be wrong. 

He does not even pause to let us take off our shoes so we stand there, waves swirling around our knees, feet soaking wet, sea spray plastering hair across our faces as he looks toward the way we have come. 

“He is not gone,” he says to me. “He lives, across that drafted water. He meets with those tedious Lords of Aragorn’s in Minas Tirith, he tries to tame his wild sister into some semblance of a princess. We can no longer see him but he is _not_ gone. We have not lost him, Elrohir. He is still there.”

He is right. Eldarion is not yet gone as Aragorn is gone. I wonder what he thinks of now. I wonder what he does. I know his daily routine, I could work it out if I tried. I will never know the exact moment he truly leaves us. I can imagine, for eternity if I wish, he is still there. 

Then there is a cool wet hand upon my cheek, there are soft warm lips upon my mouth, strong arms encircle me, another’s heart beats against my chest, warm breath in my ear. 

I thought he was missing,

But finally _my_ Legolas has arrived. 

My mercurial, unpredictable, Legolas is here. 


End file.
